The Love Interest

by Kayley Loring

  I need to remember that kind of detail, for Jack to notice and feel the same way.

  A cab slows down and stops about fifteen feet away instead of pulling up alongside us. I go over to open the rear door and tell the driver it’s just a metal rooster, in case he thought it was—I don’t know—something else. I wave Fiona over, holding the door open for her. As she steps in front of me and slides into the back seat, her earthy floral scent transports me to another time and place.

  My cabin upstate. In the summer. I was writing in the living room. The windows were open. The lavender fragrance wafted in and mingled with the sandalwood incense, and I remember feeling good. So good that I wished I had someone to share it with. And then I had realized I felt guilty because I wasn’t wishing it were Sophie who was there with me—it was some nameless, faceless wish of a woman I hadn’t met yet.

  I had forgotten about that.

  Fiona holds her hands out, reaching for Goliath, and then places him on the seat between us.

  I’m not going to feel guilty tonight, Sophie. And that’s okay.

  “To Grand Central Terminal,” I tell the driver. “Take Third Avenue. We aren’t in a hurry.”

  “It’s so beautiful.”

  I think I read that around 750,000 people pass through Grand Central Terminal every day, and I bet only a few hundred of them actually stop to look up at the ceiling in the huge Main Concourse. There are only about a dozen of us in here right now, and Fiona is the only one who is staring up at the celestial turquoise blue and gold painted mural on the vaulted ceiling. I’m staring at the graceful curve of her neck and jawline, the way her lips part as she blinks in slow motion. New Yorkers rarely appreciate the beauty of the city around them, and being able to watch a gorgeous young woman appreciate one of the most beautiful buildings in this city is a gift.

  I wonder if she’ll still be this full of wonder a week, a month, a year from now.

  I hope some guy doesn’t fuck the wonder out of her.

  I hope I don’t.

  She takes in the gold constellations, and I wonder if she’ll notice the quirk—or defect—of the murals.

  “There’s Aries,” she says, all breathy and reverent.

  “You an Aries?” I don’t give a shit about astrology, but I want to learn whatever I can about this person tonight. Or maybe just enough.

  “Yes. What are you? Can I guess?”

  “Go for it.”

  “Taurus.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  She finally tears her gaze away from the heavens to give me a knowing smirk. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I don’t speak horoscope.”

  She shakes her head and searches for the Taurus constellation above us. “You’re stoic. Stubborn. But I’m guessing once you commit to something…or someone…you’re all in. Except when you get hurt, you retreat and you never want to get hurt again.”

  Jesus. I feel attacked. And seen.

  She points up at the bull, who’s about to get clobbered by Orion. “Very practical. Stable. Calm.” She blinks, doesn’t look at me when she says, as if she’s realizing it while saying it, “Very relationship oriented. And sensual.” She gives me the side-eye. “Am I in the ballpark?”

  “You’re standing right on the pitcher’s mound. It’s horseshit. But that was impressive.”

  “Must feel great to be a cynic,” she deadpans.

  “It’s fucking fantastic. Where would you like to set up this photo shoot?” I gesture at the rooster I’m carrying. “The clock?”

  “Yes. Perfect.” She takes Goliath from me and skips over to the information booth and its famous clock. Placing the rooster on the floor, she suddenly looks up at the ceiling again. “Hey. This is wrong…”

  She caught it. That is impressive.

  She points up at the constellations. “This is backward. They didn’t paint it from Earth’s perspective. If you’re looking up at the sky, it would be the other way around.”

  “That’s right. You into astronomy as well as astrology?”

  She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “I like stars and other shiny pretty things.”

  “Right. Sarcasm. I didn’t mean for that to sound so derisive.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t mean to become a cynic either.”

  It’s a throwaway line, but the observation gives me pause.

  Actually, it really stops me cold.

  Only a fucking California girl would say that kind of thing.

  But she’s right. Nobody means to become a cynic. I didn’t. I just didn’t try hard enough not to.

  I make an effort to say this in as genuine a way as possible, “It must feel great to not be a cynic.”

  She smiles and blinks in slow motion again before saying, “It’s fucking fantastic.”

  And then she positions herself ten feet away from the cock and takes pictures of it with her phone, calling out to the statue as if it’s a model. “Good. Perfect! Yes! Do that again. Strut around some more! Shake your tail feathers! Yeah, baby! Give me a sly little sexy grin you naughty, naughty cock.”

  I nod at the Amish family who are rushing past us to get to the train tracks. “Morning.”

  “Okay,” she exclaims. “Done. That’s a wrap.”

  “You want me to take a picture of you? For your mom?”

  She slides her phone back into her pocket while adjusting her hair. She has shoulder-length hair and she’s always fiddling with her bangs, as though having bangs that aren’t covering her forehead in exactly the right way will somehow temper the alarming beauty of her face. It doesn’t. She could have a crappy wig on backward like leopard-print coat lady and still be stunning.

  “I don’t like posing for pictures. Especially not in public. Thank you though.”

  “Fair enough.” I pick up Goliath. “To the Whispering Gallery?”

  “Yes, please. You know how to get there?”

  “Yeah, it’s by the Oyster Bar.”

  “So you’ve experienced it before? The whispering thing?”

  “Nope. I’m usually on my own when I’m here. On my way to or from Connecticut.”

  “Walking around by yourself, huh?” she teases. “I’m concerned.”

  I don’t even bother replying with a comeback because she’s so busy looking around and I’d rather just watch her. I lead her to the ramp down to the Dining Concourse. I’ve never been here at five in the morning before. It’s usually bustling and I’m usually in a rush to catch a train. It’s quiet now. This is one of the reasons I love being awake late at night, but this feels like a stolen moment. Like catching the sunrise over the harbor. It’s turning out to be one of those rare New York experiences where things come into focus, and I’m so glad I can actually recognize it while it’s happening.

  I’m already grateful to this girl for reminding me of something that I need to keep in mind for Jack… Each new person you meet is an opportunity to become some new, better version of yourself. It’s just a matter of whether or not you’re willing to reach for the new in order to let go of what you don’t need anymore.

  Jack Irons is ready to reach for something new.

  I’m not.

  But I’m ready to write about it.

  “You really aren’t tired?” I ask her. Because she seems so young, and I just don’t remember what it felt like to be wide awake for all the good reasons.

  “I haven’t been tired for a week.” She shrugs. “I know I should sleep more. I mean, I have slept a few hours here and there, but…there’s so much to do and I…”

  “You what?”

  She seems shy all of a sudden. She looks down at the floor, five feet in front of her, like a typical New Yorker. Like me. “I’ve had this feeling…like something significant is going to happen. You know? I haven’t had that kind of anticipation since I was a kid, and I don’t even know exactly what it is I’ve been anticipating.” It seems like she’s going to continue, but she doesn’t. It seems like she wants to look over to ch
eck my reaction, but she doesn’t.

  I stop in the middle of the arched entryway between the Oyster Bar and the exit to 42nd Street. “This is it.”

  “It is?” she whispers, looking at me all wide eyed and young, so young.

  “The Whispering Gallery.”

  “Oh.” She’s disappointed. She thought I was telling her that this is what she’s been anticipating. But I can’t tell her that. I’m too old to say things like that out loud to beautiful girls I’ve just met in the wee small hours of the morning.

  This part of Grand Central doesn’t look much different from the other cream-colored-tiled Beaux-Arts corridors, which makes it even more intoxicating to know that it has a secret.

  I put the rooster down in a corner before saying, “You read about the Guastavino tiles and why the phenomenon occurs?”

  “No, my mom and I were Googling articles about special places to visit in New York, and we thought this sounded romantic.”

  “Okay. Well, Guastavino designed this archway, and the tiles on the curved ceiling are set together so tightly, without any vents, that there’s no place for sound waves to disappear into. And there aren’t any rugs, so there’s no way for sound to be absorbed. Because of this, if one person speaks directly into one of these corners, there’s nowhere for the sound to go except up, following the arch to another corner.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “It was a happy accident. The sound waves basically cling to the walls. Do you want to get a shot of the cock whispering into that corner?”

  “I think my mother would rather know that I tried it out myself with a handsome stranger.” She doesn’t even smile or blush or smirk, she just says it so directly.

  “Right. Let’s do this.”

  She goes over to the corner that Goliath is standing in, moves him aside a bit, and then looks over at me to make sure I’m really going to the opposite corner.

  “I’m not going to leave you hanging,” I whisper into the corner.

  “Holy shit!” she whispers, and I can hear her so clearly from thirty feet away. “That is so cool!”

  “Welcome to New York, Fiona.”

  “Thank you, handsome stranger. I really appreciate you coming here with me.”

  “I didn’t have anything better to do.”

  “Rude.”

  “And I wanted to come here with you.”

  “Better.”

  A group of about twenty people enter from outside and then hurry up the ramp behind us. Despite their chattering, we can still hear each other perfectly.

  “Is it all that you hoped it would be?”

  “Better.”

  “Good.”

  She starts humming a tune that I recognize. “Sad Eyes.” The Springsteen version.

  “I like that song.”

  “It’s going to remind me of you from now on. What song is going to remind you of me?”

  “Too soon to tell.”

  “Rude.”

  “Honest. I don’t take that question lightly.”

  “Okay, then. Tell me one true sentence, Emmett Ford.”

  Holy shit.

  “It’s something Ernest Hemingway wrote about. In A Moveable Feast. Tell me one true sentence, and then we can go.”

  You just blew my mind. That is one true sentence.

  It feels like I’m dreaming, and I don’t want to wake up. That is another.

  But I can’t tell her these things.

  The whispered words that keep echoing around my mind are, I have never wanted so badly to kiss a woman I’ve just met in my entire life. What I whisper out loud is, “I’m glad I met you tonight.”

  “Me too.”

  “Are you going to tell me one true sentence now?”

  “I just did. I was going to say the same thing.”

  “Tell me one more true thing, then.”

  “Okay… I don’t want to say goodbye to you yet.”

  “You don’t have to. Want to go watch the sunrise with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  We turn to face each other. I don’t think we would have said those things out loud to each other face to face tonight, but I haven’t said anything remotely like that to a woman in about eleven years. It may just be that I’m not used to talking to another person, much less a beautiful girl, in the hours just before dawn. Or it may just be Fiona.

  She picks up the rooster, and we meet in the middle of the corridor. I take the statue from her, hold it in one arm, and take her hand with the other. Because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the least I could do for her right now—walk hand in hand with her out of the Whispering Gallery, back out onto the streets of Manhattan, on the way to the first sunrise I’ll be watching with a woman in over a decade.

  I want to know more about her, but I also think maybe I know enough, for now.

  I’m inspired.

  I feel more awake than I have in ages.

  I feel a little less cynical than I did a couple of hours ago.

  And I’m ready to get started on a new beginning.

  9

  FIONA

  Emmett Ford has beautiful hands.

  The park he has brought me to, at Pier 35, is wonderful and nearly empty because it just opened at six. It’s at the edge of the East River and my neighborhood on the Lower East Side, and I had no idea it was here. We’re sitting on a bench. His arm is around my shoulder, and his fingertips trace gentle but devastating circles on my bicep. I want to take off my blouse and feel his fingers directly on my skin.

  Fuck it, I want to take off everything and feel his everything on my everything.

  To one side of him is a four-foot metal cock, to the other is a stunning view of the sunrise behind the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, but all I’ve been thinking about for the past fifteen minutes is how great this man’s penis probably looks.

  I can’t even remember the last time I saw the dawn of a new day with a guy, and now my brain is flooded with early morning penis thoughts.

  I bet it’s handsome and well-groomed and maybe even a little stoic and moody, but deep down it’s sweet and romantic and fully capable of drilling me ten different ways until I can’t remember my own name or walk straight.

  I feel so tipsy, but I know for sure I haven’t consumed any alcohol in the past couple of days. I’m drunk on a hurricane of hormones and the sound of this man’s whispered voice in my ears and that sunrise and his fingertips. Now I want to feel his stubble on my skin, all over. I want him to exfoliate my entire body with it.

  This needs to happen.

  I’m inspired, but I need him to inspire me more. Hard. Soon.

  I’ve been forcing myself to watch the sunrise because I know that as soon as I turn my head to look at Emmett again, the glow of the sun and all of New York will fade to black and I will kiss him.

  I will kiss him and kiss him, and I won’t want to stop kissing him.

  He curls his fingertips now, tickling my arm, and I feel it all over like the most gentle and seductive electric shock.

  He doesn’t say a single word, but I know exactly what he wants right now, and it’s exactly what I want.

  His hand slowly glides up my arm, across my shoulders, to push my hair aside. He leans in, and the tip of his nose touches my neck as he inhales the perfume on my pulse point just below my ear, and then he kisses me. Soft and slow on my neck, and then he pulls back just enough for me to turn to face him. I lift up my legs to rest them across his lap, because he needs to know that I mean business. He touches his hands to the sides of my face, just barely, but I feel so completely held by this man already.

  His eyes are hooded and his sun-kissed skin is even more golden in this light, and his face is so beautiful it actually hurts a little to look at him.

  This is why I end up with the Seth Rogan look-alikes. It never hurts to walk away from them. I can get more work done. Stay focused. I’m never tormented by the days and nights I don’t spend with them. I
love sex, but it has always been more important to me to be responsible. To be practical. To stay on track. I already know I will see Emmett’s face whenever I close my eyes for quite some time. I will probably wear mismatched shoes and show up a few minutes late for work or class because I spaced out while thinking about his dazzling blue eyes while I was in the middle of brushing my teeth, and I’m not even scared of that at the moment.

  I close my eyes and part my lips and grab on to his shirt with both hands, tilting my chin up the tiniest bit. He makes a quiet, sexy, guttural sound as his lips graze mine. Soft and slow, he kisses me the way his fingertips were kissing my arms through my blouse—so delicately that it somehow stirs up a torrent of butterflies and shivers and indicates just how much he’s holding back.

  This stoic golden boy-handsome guy just might be the most passionate man I’ve ever let myself kiss.

  I pull back the tiniest bit so I can lick him, from his lightly stubbled chin to his mouth, and then nibble on his lower lip while staring into his eyes. It ignites something in him, and he cups the back of my head with one hand, combing his fingers through my hair with the other. I don’t even care what my bangs look like right now because Emmett Ford is kissing me the way I’ve always wanted to be kissed. Like it’s the only thing in the world he wants to do right now. Like he’s a drowning man and kissing me is what will save him. Like I’m a woman who deserves to be kissed like this and he’s the only man who deserves to do it.

  Every single thing he hasn’t said to me since we met—everything I’ve seen in his eyes—he’s telling me with his lips and his tongue and his hands in my hair. I understand everything I need to know about him for now. He’s a fucking fantastic kisser, and he doesn’t kiss every woman like this. It’s been a long time since he’s kissed someone like this, and it’s been exactly never since anyone’s ever kissed me like this. I didn’t even realize it’s what I’ve been waiting for my whole life.

  This is what New York has silently promised me ever since I arrived. I have no sense of where we are anymore or if anyone else is around. We’re just two relative strangers, alive and kissing on a park bench, enveloped by the panorama of a city that is slowly waking up as I’m ready to take someone to bed with me.